The invention relates to semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) and more particularly to an on-die heating circuit and control loop for rapid calibration and testing.
Conventional methods of heating ICs for testing or calibration purposes include externally applying heat to the IC or placing the IC in a special temperature controlled chamber. These arrangements are generally costly to implement and do not provide accurate results where the IC needs to be rapidly heated to precise temperatures as in the case of calibration of temperature sensitive circuits.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to be able to control the temperature of an IC so that the IC can be rapidly and accurately heated to one or more temperatures without the need for placing the IC in special temperature chambers.